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09 December 2016

At the 11th Internet Governance Forum, a United Nations-convened conference taking place in Mexico, 6-9 December, the Internet Society urged the global Internet community to redouble its efforts in addressing the wave of unprecedented challenges facing the Internet.

08 December 2016

Following a Sunrise period and an auction where more than 1,000 domain names were sold, the Austrian registry, nic.at released the remainder of the 4,965 short domains it made available to the public on 6 December at standard registration fees.

The Italian ccTLD passed the 3 millionth domain under management this week with the nominal title of the 3 millionth domain going to abbigliamentoludica.it, registered by a company from Eboli in the province of Salerno. Today there are 3,002,800 domains registered only slightly behind the tenth largest ccTLD, .fr, with 3,003,803 registrations.

A senior German conservative has warned Facebook it could face fines if it fails to act faster to tackle online hate speech, and he said the government could propose legislative measures in the new year.

European officials pushed on Tuesday for American technology giants to do more to tackle online hate speech across the region, adding to the chorus of policy makers worldwide demanding greater action from the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Their talents range from comedy to gaming and from singing to playing pranks, often captured with nothing more than a handheld camera. But YouTubers are at the vanguard of an industry worth tens of millions of pounds.

In 2015, a coalition of copyright holders lost a court case which demanded an ISP blockade of The Pirate Bay in Sweden. A year later and Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music and Nordisk Film are back, hoping for a victory in a brand new court that could open the floodgates for widespread website blocking.

The 11th annual United Nations Internet Governance Forum opened in Jalisco, Mexico, where delegates from across the world will join thousands more online to weigh the challenges of today's digital age and equal access opportunities for all members of society.

Nearly 3,000 delegates from across the world will join thousands more online for the 11th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico. With a key focus on addressing the challenges of today's digital age and how to leverage the Internet to ensure it provides equal access to opportunities for all members of society, the busy week-long Forum will run from today until December 9th.

06 December 2016

Google must urgently review its search ranking system because of "compelling" evidence that it is being "manipulated and controlled" by rightwing propagandists, leading academics have said, after the Observer reported that hate sites are now dominating searches on Muslims, Jews, Hitler and women.

Facebook appears to be testing a tool designed to help it identify and hide so called "fake news" on the social network, in an attempt to quell increasingly vocal criticism of its role in spreading untruths and propaganda.

The Chinese government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has given official approval for the .club, .vip and .xyz new gTLDs meaning they can now apply for relevant local licenses to be hosted within the country. Previously only .com and .net operated by Verisign had this official approval.

05 December 2016

China's county-level police will be able to censor internet coverage of natural and man-made disasters, according to a revised draft of the country's policing law that the Chinese Public Security Bureau released late on Thursday.

U.S. tech giants including Facebook, Twitter, Google's YouTube and Microsoft will have to act faster to tackle online hate speech or face laws forcing them to do so, the European Commission said on Sunday.

04 December 2016

A group of prominent legal scholars has warned that the EU Commission's plans to modernize copyright law in Europe appear to be incompatible with EU law. One of the main problems is the mandatory piracy filter Internet services are required to use, which largely ignore existing case law and human rights.

Here's what you don't want to do late on a Sunday night. You do not want to type seven letters into Google. That's all I did. I typed: "a-r-e". And then "j-e-w-s". Since 2008, Google has attempted to predict what question you might be asking and offers you a choice. And this is what it did. It offered me a choice of potential questions it thought I might want to ask: "are jews a race?", "are jews white?", "are jews christians?", and finally, "are jews evil?"

In one of the biggest takedowns to date, police across the globe have smashed a massive criminal network providing online services including malware attacks that infected half a million computers worldwide, Europol said Thursday.

02 December 2016

New research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that online piracy is not the only worry for TV distributors. Based on Downton Abbey streaming and sales data provided by PBS, the researchers find that free legal streams can significantly reduce download sales. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that free streaming options should be banned.

Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport has announced a new initiative for tackling piracy, especially online. Minister Íñigo Méndez de Vigo said a special prosecutor's office will be developed alongside enhanced technological and human resources. An educational campaign targeting children is also on the agenda.

01 December 2016

According to data from Adobe, Cyber Monday became the largest day in US e-commerce history. Consumers spent roughly $3.4 billion online, which just beat Black Friday's $3.34 billion. Cyber Monday generated somewhat less mobile commerce revenue at $1.19 billion vs. $1.2 billion on Black Friday.